Ski Resorts

I was up early today but quickly realized that I would not be making it to the pickup point by 5:00. I may have turned my foot weirdly on a rock yesterday because the outside of it was hurting today and I was not going very fast. I got up to the ridge and took a long second breakfast.

I followed the ridge, with views of Lake Tahoe, to the Alpine Meadows Ski Resort and noticed a paved road not too far away, with a dirt road leading to it only a short scramble away. I decided to wait for Stretch and see if she’d want to go to town from there, if Tiny was able to get us. She showed up with the same idea, and Tiny was up for it, but we eventually decided to just keep hiking so we wouldn’t be so far behind everyone else on trail. Also, although the parking lot looked close, the cars in it looked tiny, so it was probably a farther hike down than I initially thought, and it would’ve been a steep hike back up. So that was about a three hour lunch.

I went a couple miles farther to water, took a snack break, then a few more miles to the American River (more like a small creek) for a long dinner break.

Later we passed the Squaw Valley Ski Resort, which we had earlier discussed as an option for getting picked up, but there were no paved roads in sight. We kept going on the ridge but stopped earlier than planned because there were just so many good tent sites.

My tent was set up by 7:00 after only 17.1 miles. I haven’t set up before 8:30 in ages and it was great to have a relaxing day instead of running. I’m not even setting an alarm for the morning.